Suchergebnisse

The twenty-first session of the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP21) was convened in Le Bourget Paris in the frame of the Paris Climate Change Conference, hosting the largest number of participants ever seen, including 20.000 government/parties representatives, 8.000 IGOs/NGOs observers, and 3.000 media. During the first days of the negotiations, for the first time in history, 150 heads of state meet together under the same roof to give the clear and unequivocal signal that climate change is a real and unprecedented challenge for humanity, which requires an unprecedented and urgent global action, based on the collaboration and contribution of all countries. On the 12 December 2016, after two weeks of intense negotiations, one day after the expected end-date, the Decision FCCC/CP/2015/L.9/Rev.1, including the annex with the Paris Agreement, has been approved by the 196 Parties by consensus. The approved document includes the Decision of 20 pages, and the Paris Agreement of 12 pages, this in order to facilitate approval of the agreement by governments without requiring the ratification by national parliaments, which would have been practical impossible in some countries i.e. United States of America. The Paris Agreement is a universal and legally binding agreement, providing a solid architecture and ambitious targets, coordinating and mainstreaming action to face climate change challenge globally. The Decision, which is non-legally binding, contains fundamental provisions and a clear work plan/timeline to put flash on bones on the Paris Agreement itself, particularly enhancing action prior to 2020.

Actualmente, más del 50% de la población mundial vive en áreas urbanas (75% en EU), y las ciudades concentran entre un 60-80% del consumo energético global y el mismo porcentaje de las emisiones de GEI CO2. Así mismo, producen el 50% de residuos a nivel global, consumen 75% de los recursos naturales y concentran el 80% del PIB (UNEP-DTIE, 2013). -El cambio climático tiene el potencial de influir casi el total de los componentes del medio urbano y genera nuevos y complejos retos para la calidad de vida, la salud y la biodiversidad urbanas. Algunas ciudades experimentarán sequías y elevadas temperaturas. Otras podrían experimentar inundaciones. El cambio climático afectará muchos aspectos de la vida en una ciudad, desde la calidad del aire, hasta los patrones de consumo. La UE ha puesto en marcha ambiciosas políticas e iniciativas para promover soluciones sobre el terreno, entre las que se incluyen iniciativas para aumentar la resiliencia y promover tanto las energías renovables como las tecnologías de baja emisión de carbono. (EC, 2015). Las ciudades ya han comenzado a desarrollar políticas, planes y acciones específicas para la mitigación o la adaptación al cambio climático, y un relativamente pequeño pero creciente número de ellas, se encuentran liderando pioneros enfoques integrados basados en la resiliencia, que buscan responder a los retos presentados por la incertidumbre y la imprevisible naturaleza de los fenómenos que se abordan, lo cual se ve aunado a una falta de conocimiento especializado en cambio climático, en términos de investigación, evaluación, métodos, herramientas y habilidades de planeación. (EU, 2013). Haciendo una revisión en torno a los principios clave del desarrollo sostenible y a los retos clave a nivel urbano, tales como el cambio global ambiental y climático, aquí se presenta una metodología para el diseño de un proceso de transición hacia la resiliencia urbana. La metodología está basada en la amplia participación de los tomadores de decisiones, siguiendo los principios de co-diseño y co-evolución. El elemento más innovador de la metodología está relacionado con su contribución en términos de la teoría de la planeación y las prácticas para la resiliencia urbana a través de escalas tanto temporales como espaciales, lo cual se encuentra poco desarrollado actualmente. Además, el enfoque participativo del proceso de diseño redefine el rol de los planificadores aportando una perspectiva más amplia, no más como demiurgo, sino como un facilitador en los procesos de diseño y El objetivo original de la tesis, es el desarrollo de una metodología para la evaluación integrada del desarrollo urbano sostenible, expandido y ampliado para abordar la necesidad que existe, como se prueba tanto en la existencia de literatura científica como de documentos de políticas de la UE y de la ONU, de encontrar nuevas formas y métodos para la planeación en términos de resiliencia urbana, vista como un proceso dinámico y continuo de adaptación de la ciudad que permita un balance entre la necesidad de reducir el riesgo y la de innovar, todo ello para aumentar el bienestar de los ciudadanos a través de la co-evolución basada en procesos de planeación participativa. El resultado obtenido es una metodología de diseño de procesos completamente funcional para la transición hacia la resiliencia urbana, incluyendo un enfoque sistémico y un método de evaluación integrada de la sostenibilidad, el cual ha sido desarrollado desde su concepción a un Nivel de Preparación Tecnológica 7-8, finalmente incluyendo una demostración del prototipo del sistema en un ambiente operativo. ; Today over 50% of world population lives in urban areas (75% in EU), and cities account for 60-80% of global energy consumption and the same share of GHG CO2, producing 50% of global waste, consuming 75% of natural resources and producing 80% of global GDP. (UNEP-DTIE, 2013) ¿Climate change has the potential to influence almost all components of the urban environment and raises new, complex challenges for quality of urban life, health and urban biodiversity. Some cities will experience droughts and increased temperatures. Others may experience floods. Climate change will affect many aspects of urban living from air quality to consumption patterns. The EU has put in place ambitious policies and initiatives to promoting solutions on the ground. These include initiatives to increase resilience and promote renewable energies and low-carbon technologies. (EC, 2015) Cities have already started to develop specific mitigation or adaption or risk policies/plans/actions; and a relatively small but growing number of them are now pioneering an integrated approach urban resilience based, facing challenges related uncertainty and unpredictability of the phenomena they are addressing, and ultimately suffering for a lack of knowledge in terms of research, evaluation methods/tools and planning skills. (EU, 2013) Following a review of sustainable development principles and key urban challenges, as climate and global environmental changes, it is here presented a process design methodology for urban resilience transition. The methodology is based on broad stakeholders' participation, following co-design and co-evolution principles. The most innovative element of the process design methodology is related to the contribution in terms of planning theory and practices for urban resilience, cross-scale both in time and space, which is currently very little understood and developed. Furthermore the participatory process design approach re-define the role of planner in a wider perspective, not any longer as demiurges, but as facilitator of planning and design processes. The original objective of the thesis, to develop a methodology for integrated evaluation of sustainable urban development, was expanded and broadened to address the very needed request, as proven by both existence of scientific literature and EU/UN policy document, for new forms and methodology of planning addressing urban resilience, as a dynamic process of continuous adaptation of cities balancing between the need to reduce risk and to innovate, ultimately to increase well-being urban citizens, through co-evolution based participatory planning processes. The results is a fully working process design methodology for urban resilient transition, including the original system thinking approach and embedded with an integrated evaluation of sustainability system, which has been developed from inception to a Technology Readiness Level 7-8, finally including the system prototype demonstration in operational environment. ; Postprint (published version)

The twenty-first session of the UNFCCC Conference of the Parties (COP21) was convened in Le Bourget Paris in the frame of the Paris Climate Change Conference, hosting the largest number of participants ever seen, including 20.000 government/parties representatives, 8.000 IGOs/NGOs observers, and 3.000 media. During the first days of the negotiations, for the first time in history, 150 heads of state meet together under the same roof to give the clear and unequivocal signal that climate change is a real and unprecedented challenge for humanity, which requires an unprecedented and urgent global action, based on the collaboration and contribution of all countries. On the 12 December 2016, after two weeks of intense negotiations, one day after the expected end-date, the Decision FCCC/CP/2015/L.9/Rev.1, including the annex with the Paris Agreement, has been approved by the 196 Parties by consensus. The approved document includes the Decision of 20 pages, and the Paris Agreement of 12 pages, this in order to facilitate approval of the agreement by governments without requiring the ratification by national parliaments, which would have been practical impossible in some countries i.e. United States of America. The Paris Agreement is a universal and legally binding agreement, providing a solid architecture and ambitious targets, coordinating and mainstreaming action to face climate change challenge globally. The Decision, which is non-legally binding, contains fundamental provisions and a clear work plan/timeline to put flash on bones on the Paris Agreement itself, particularly enhancing action prior to 2020.

Actualmente, más del 50% de la población mundial vive en áreas urbanas (75% en EU), y las ciudades concentran entre un 60-80% del consumo energético global y el mismo porcentaje de las emisiones de GEI CO2. Así mismo, producen el 50% de residuos a nivel global, consumen 75% de los recursos naturales y concentran el 80% del PIB (UNEP-DTIE, 2013). -El cambio climático tiene el potencial de influir casi el total de los componentes del medio urbano y genera nuevos y complejos retos para la calidad de vida, la salud y la biodiversidad urbanas. Algunas ciudades experimentarán sequías y elevadas temperaturas. Otras podrían experimentar inundaciones. El cambio climático afectará muchos aspectos de la vida en una ciudad, desde la calidad del aire, hasta los patrones de consumo. La UE ha puesto en marcha ambiciosas políticas e iniciativas para promover soluciones sobre el terreno, entre las que se incluyen iniciativas para aumentar la resiliencia y promover tanto las energías renovables como las tecnologías de baja emisión de carbono. (EC, 2015). Las ciudades ya han comenzado a desarrollar políticas, planes y acciones específicas para la mitigación o la adaptación al cambio climático, y un relativamente pequeño pero creciente número de ellas, se encuentran liderando pioneros enfoques integrados basados en la resiliencia, que buscan responder a los retos presentados por la incertidumbre y la imprevisible naturaleza de los fenómenos que se abordan, lo cual se ve aunado a una falta de conocimiento especializado en cambio climático, en términos de investigación, evaluación, métodos, herramientas y habilidades de planeación. (EU, 2013). Haciendo una revisión en torno a los principios clave del desarrollo sostenible y a los retos clave a nivel urbano, tales como el cambio global ambiental y climático, aquí se presenta una metodología para el diseño de un proceso de transición hacia la resiliencia urbana. La metodología está basada en la amplia participación de los tomadores de decisiones, siguiendo los principios de co-diseño y co-evolución. El elemento más innovador de la metodología está relacionado con su contribución en términos de la teoría de la planeación y las prácticas para la resiliencia urbana a través de escalas tanto temporales como espaciales, lo cual se encuentra poco desarrollado actualmente. Además, el enfoque participativo del proceso de diseño redefine el rol de los planificadores aportando una perspectiva más amplia, no más como demiurgo, sino como un facilitador en los procesos de diseño y El objetivo original de la tesis, es el desarrollo de una metodología para la evaluación integrada del desarrollo urbano sostenible, expandido y ampliado para abordar la necesidad que existe, como se prueba tanto en la existencia de literatura científica como de documentos de políticas de la UE y de la ONU, de encontrar nuevas formas y métodos para la planeación en términos de resiliencia urbana, vista como un proceso dinámico y continuo de adaptación de la ciudad que permita un balance entre la necesidad de reducir el riesgo y la de innovar, todo ello para aumentar el bienestar de los ciudadanos a través de la co-evolución basada en procesos de planeación participativa. El resultado obtenido es una metodología de diseño de procesos completamente funcional para la transición hacia la resiliencia urbana, incluyendo un enfoque sistémico y un método de evaluación integrada de la sostenibilidad, el cual ha sido desarrollado desde su concepción a un Nivel de Preparación Tecnológica 7-8, finalmente incluyendo una demostración del prototipo del sistema en un ambiente operativo. ; Today over 50% of world population lives in urban areas (75% in EU), and cities account for 60-80% of global energy consumption and the same share of GHG CO2, producing 50% of global waste, consuming 75% of natural resources and producing 80% of global GDP. (UNEP-DTIE, 2013) ¿Climate change has the potential to influence almost all components of the urban environment and raises new, complex challenges for quality of urban life, health and urban biodiversity. Some cities will experience droughts and increased temperatures. Others may experience floods. Climate change will affect many aspects of urban living from air quality to consumption patterns. The EU has put in place ambitious policies and initiatives to promoting solutions on the ground. These include initiatives to increase resilience and promote renewable energies and low-carbon technologies. (EC, 2015) Cities have already started to develop specific mitigation or adaption or risk policies/plans/actions; and a relatively small but growing number of them are now pioneering an integrated approach urban resilience based, facing challenges related uncertainty and unpredictability of the phenomena they are addressing, and ultimately suffering for a lack of knowledge in terms of research, evaluation methods/tools and planning skills. (EU, 2013) Following a review of sustainable development principles and key urban challenges, as climate and global environmental changes, it is here presented a process design methodology for urban resilience transition. The methodology is based on broad stakeholders' participation, following co-design and co-evolution principles. The most innovative element of the process design methodology is related to the contribution in terms of planning theory and practices for urban resilience, cross-scale both in time and space, which is currently very little understood and developed. Furthermore the participatory process design approach re-define the role of planner in a wider perspective, not any longer as demiurges, but as facilitator of planning and design processes. The original objective of the thesis, to develop a methodology for integrated evaluation of sustainable urban development, was expanded and broadened to address the very needed request, as proven by both existence of scientific literature and EU/UN policy document, for new forms and methodology of planning addressing urban resilience, as a dynamic process of continuous adaptation of cities balancing between the need to reduce risk and to innovate, ultimately to increase well-being urban citizens, through co-evolution based participatory planning processes. The results is a fully working process design methodology for urban resilient transition, including the original system thinking approach and embedded with an integrated evaluation of sustainability system, which has been developed from inception to a Technology Readiness Level 7-8, finally including the system prototype demonstration in operational environment. ; Postprint (published version)

By 2050, people in urbanized areas will account for 68% of the world's population, 80% of which will be concentrated in Asia and Africa. The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) introduced in 2011 the National Adaptation Plan (NAP) under the Cancun Adaptation Framework (CAF). Countries of the non-Annex I, described by the UN-General Assembly as especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, are invited to develop NAPs to identify adaptation challenges and devise appropriate climate adaptation responses. Recognizing the increasing vulnerability of urban systems to the effects of climate change, in 2019, UN-Habitat defined the supplement of the NAP process's technical guidelines for addressing urban and human settlement issues in NAPs. This paper aims to propose a methodology to assess the urban content of the NAPs after ten years from that the CAF comes into force. The evaluation is based, adapting and expanding, on the methodology used to assess the urban content of Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC) published by UN-Habitat in 2017. The methodology aims to analyse both key adaptation challenges and responses explicitly or implicitly related to urban systems. Moreover, it aims at understanding the interlinkage of urban content in NAP in relation to other key policies, such as NDCs and National Urban Policies (NUPs). In this perspective, 172 indicators were selected and clustered into nine groups: (i) Geographic Indicators; (ii) General Indicators; (iii) NAPs General Indicators; (iv) NAPs Urban Indicators; (v) NDCs Indicators; (vi) NUPs Indicators; (vii) Urban content in National Policies Indicators; (viii) International policy linkages (including SDGs, Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, Paris Agreement and New Urban agenda); (ix) National plans/policy/strategies/reports linkages. The methodology was tested on Brazil's NAP, trying to find general considerations to apply to the countries that officially submitted their NAPs between 2014 to 2020. The test showed that: there is a stronger focus on defining climate adaptation challenges more than responses; climate adaptation challenges and responses are predominantly identified at the national scale, with a focus on policies and strategies at the national level; among the Brazilian NAP, there is "cities strategy", and it means that the NAP has a high urban content. In conclusion, the paper will highlight critical issues and improvements for each of the nine indices analysed.

This book brings together a series of theory and practice essays on risk management and adaptation in urban contexts within a resilient and multidimensional perspective. The book proposes a transversal approach with regard to the role of spatial planning in promoting and fostering risk management as well as institutions' challenges for governing risk, particularly in relation to new forms of multi-level governance that may include stakeholders and citizen engagement. The different contributions focus on approaches, policies, and practices able to contrast risks in urban systems generating social inclusion, equity and participation through bottom-up governance forms and co-evolution principles. Case studies focus on lessons learned, as well as the potential and means for their replication and upscaling, also through capacity building and knowledge transfer. Among many other topics, the book explores difficulties encountered in, and creative solutions found, community and local experiences and capacities, organizational processes and integrative institutional, technical approaches to risk issue in cities.

Greenhouse gases emissions resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels are worsening air quality and affecting the climate system. While climate change impacts on meteorological variables affects air quality by altering the concentration and distribution of pollutants, air pollution significantly influences the climate, leading to negative impacts on human health. Due to the combination of high temperatures, air pollution, and high population density, cities are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts. The planning and design of public spaces aimed at climate change mitigation and adaptation can result in multiple co-benefits for human health, while reducing social inequalities. To address the major research gaps in the communication between health and planning experts, and the lack of capacity among public sectors and policy makers, it is necessary to promote capacity building and knowledge sharing between the planning and health sectors. The purpose of this article is to develop preliminary recommendations for a process that allows a comprehensive assessment of the interlinkages between climate and health, social, environmental, and economic vulnerabilities, and the quality of the urban spaces, to support local governments, policymakers, and education institutions in making informed decisions for public spaces. The methods applied were a literature review and interviews with experts.

Greenhouse gases emissions resulting from the combustion of fossil fuels are worsening air quality and affecting the climate system. While climate change impacts on meteorological variables affects air quality by altering the concentration and distribution of pollutants, air pollution significantly influences the climate, leading to negative impacts on human health. Due to the combination of high temperatures, air pollution, and high population density, cities are particularly vulnerable to climate change impacts. The planning and design of public spaces aimed at climate change mitigation and adaptation can result in multiple co-benefits for human health, while reducing social inequalities. To address the major research gaps in the communication between health and planning experts, and the lack of capacity among public sectors and policy makers, it is necessary to promote capacity building and knowledge sharing between the planning and health sectors. The purpose of this article is to develop preliminary recommendations for a process that allows a comprehensive assessment of the interlinkages between climate and health, social, environmental, and economic vulnerabilities, and the quality of the urban spaces, to support local governments, policymakers, and education institutions in making informed decisions for public spaces. The methods applied were a literature review and interviews with experts. ; Peer Reviewed ; Postprint (published version)